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Irving Klaw and Bettie Page More of the Early Years series by Jim Linderman

COLLECTION JIM LINDERMAN

COLLECTION JIM LINDERMAN

As these scarce envelopes indicate, while Betty Grable was being reported as the pinup our boys favored in their foxholes, the REAL soldiers were writing to Irving Klaw, self-styled Pin Up King and soon to be major distributor of bondage photographs. Klaw made money on tired, dreary Hollywood cheesecake long before hitting on the harder stuff…but it was the stuff he sold the soldiers when they got back home which put him in hot water.

In the first example, you can see the Klaw office notes: one dollar for one 4" x 5" still. I hope it was a Bettie.

Klaw had been peddling gams and gals for quite a while before Bettie Page came along. In 1950, Eye Magazine reported "Klaw advertises his wares in more than fifty domestic magazines and about two dozen foreign publications…" so business must have been doing fine. (It was…by 1950 Klaw was reportedly selling a million cheesecake photographs a year.) And yes, Klaw sold Grable in the early days…but as you can see, he was hot on his own discoveries as well. Here Klaw inspects the talent of a hopeful. He could make even more money on his own photos.

No less than Dr. Kinsey paid visits to Klaw. (Three times!) Perhaps because Klaw also sold John Willie material. I can't even link to John Willie on this site, you can look him up yourself. Trust, they were trussed. Seriously knotted and trussed. Klaw sold Willie drawings for fifty cents each and also the series on photographic paper for $5.00. Five dollars in 1950 would be $47.81 today. As I have reported elsewhere, that was more than the entire weekly wage for the Average worker in 1950. Look close at the yellowing clip below to see some of Klaw's other early "cheesecake" of fighting women in high heels.

Eric Stanton began selling work to Klaw as early as 1947. Eric Stanton was influenced by Willie and more information on Stanton will be on Vintage Sleaze soon.

Klaw's success was also his downfall. Or rather, his failure to disclose his tax receipts and business records was his downfall. He was cited for contempt by the United States Senate (along with Eddie Mishkin and Abraham Rubin, both organized crime figures) for failing to comply.

ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHIC PRINT COLLECTION JIM LINDERMAN

Although Irving Klaw is today best known for the photographs of Bettie Page he distributed, she was but a minor part of the millions of photographs which went out...and millions of dollars which came in to the Klaw offices.

"...collected over the years by Jim Linderman, a character who seems the perfect subject for a Harvey Pekar comic. Linderman treats collecting like a calling, and his finds have a resulting air of authority, stunning in their capture of bygone picturesque moments."Derek Taylor Dusted

"...Jim Linderman’s blog Vintage Sleaze – a treasure chest (sorry) of adult gags, disreputable imagery and sordid stories featuring some of America’s best-loved sexy artists. Vintage Sleaze is “the true and untold history of smut in America,” Linderman reveals in the site’s opening statement – now if that’s a line that doesn’t tickle your fancy, I don’t know what will."Alex Moshakis It's Nice That

"Linderman acknowledges the obscure at the same time that he elevates it.... His collections tell vast stories in sotto voce, allowing curios and objects shadowed by mainstream culture and ideology to converse and be heard. What we hear is an enormous American sub-culture speaking in forbidden, marginalized languages: stuff discovered boxed in the attic out of embarrassment or zealotry, smutty ash trays crowing next to religious pamphlets, each claiming a part of the complex, sometimes contradictory, always conflicted American imagination, a chaos of memories that will one day vanish."Joe Bonomo Author of Conversations With Greil Marcus, Jerry Lewis Lost and Found and No Such Thing As Was

"The pictures, discarded artifacts of ecstatic Americana, come from the stash of Jim Linderman, who in his introduction recalls advice he’s plainly taken to heart: “Collect the heck” out of whatever you find interesting."Drew Jubera Paste Magazine

"His interest in art is rivaled only by his interest in music, and one expression informs the other. He pursues objects with thoroughness and an innate sense of curiosity..."Tanya Heinrich Folk Art Magazine

"Documenting--one clipping at a time--the scrapbook of a leg and garter aficionado that was dumpster-dived in Virginia in the 60s" "...an outstanding image-archaeologist who has compiled a shelf-ful of worthy and unique photographic histories."William Smith Hang Fire Books

"Linderman has a knack for discovering untold stories and introducing them to a wider audience"Joey Lin Anonymous Works

"...grumpy....The Austin Chronicle 2014

"Jim Linderman...makes us all look a little puny"Could it be Madness-this?

"...there's something beyond the endless photos and postcards and weird propaganda from another time that he lovingly documents - I think it's the collection as a whole, the portrait of a person fascinated with culture and communication. I have met people like this before, and in reading Dull Tool Dim Bulb I feel I have been lucky enough to meet one more. This site is a goldmine in terms of links..."The Hyggelic Life October 2009

"Linderman is always on the lookout for the new and exciting"Chuck and Jan Rosenak Contemporary American Folk Art

"...an amazing collection..."Revel in New York October 2009

"Jim Linderman has a nice little colllection of interesting books and blogs...But every so often he just loses it."American Digest March 2010

"Perpetually ahead of the collecting curve...a one man Taschen. An authentically curious individual...diligently archiving the forgotten curiosities of American History"

Emma Higgins in Art Hack May 2012

"FOR MOST OF HIS LIFE, COLLECTOR JIM LINDERMAN has searched high and low for authentic things--unique and special objects that define the artistic culture of the American experience. From folk art to popular culture, from pulp fiction to Delta Blues-- Jim is a walking authority on so many things American they are too numerous to mention. One thing is certain-- his collecting interests are for things that have fallen through the cracks, those things lost and forgotten--the box of material under the table at the flea market booth. If it wasn't for dedicated collectors like Jim Linderman-- so many important objects about our culture would have surely been lost to time and indifference."

"Jim Linderman maintains a most interesting blog about the most amazing things from his collection—a site he calls “Dull Tool Dim Bulb,” the only curse words his father ever uttered. I love it, and read it everyday.""...an excellent writer and I devour your blog daily. I am impressed at your deep knowledge of things within your niche..."John Foster Accidental Mysteries

"I am grateful to Jim Linderman for first alerting me to the existence of the 1930s Spiritualist hymn "Jesus is My Air-o-plane."William Fagaly New Orleans Museum of Art, Author Tools of her Ministry: The art of Sister Gertrude Morgan

"Linderman describes a long gone world...(he) claims not to be a writer but he is most certainly an excellent researcher..."BOOKSTEVE

"Jim Linderman, King of the Internet Ephemeral Arts"Spaniel Rage

"Jim is a fantastic historian...show him some love"Astrid Daley Fringe Pop / Sin-A-Rama

"Almost an experimental narrative"Idiopath

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About Me

What We Are

Vintage Sleaze the daily blog discovers forgotten artists of the past who worked in the somewhat dicey but hilarious early smut market. Colorful, funny and often touching, writer, collector (and Grammy™ nominee)Jim Linderman writes the text using the vintage cartoon gag, limp-core smut and risque novelty collection of Victor Minx as a starting point for examinations into the sexy and sexist days of girlie magazines, gag digests, back page scams and sideshow midnight rambles. Early strippers, models, illustrators, artists, photographers, mob-connected publishers hire amphetamine driven writers (many posing under pseudonyms) and all mingle together in an amazing orgy of the funny and often fetishistic follies of the fifties. Linderman is able to balance the line between the profane and the profound easily, as the backyard erotica of the time was tame compared to today. Tease and trash your ancestors refused to admit existed (but bought in huge piles anyway.) From Tijuana Bibles and inept snapshot salesmen to party toys and risque postcards, the site shows it all with delicate and affectionate respect and humor. A entire generation of artistic smut was rightly eliminated by the women’s movement but there was a glimmer of merit in the dark corners. Linderman aims to find it and makes no apologies, and in fact many of the followers of his site are women. Like a reporter, he digs it up and shares without judging. He frequently receives mail from relatives of those he profiles and most seem happy to have had the work of their ancestors found again and appreciated. Vintage Sleaze runs daily until he runs out!

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